The Opening
by natida
Summary: The year is 1925. Eight years after graduating, and in midst of a blizzard, Rolanda Hooch returns to Hogwarts for a job interview. Phineas Nigellus has been waiting.


**Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, semi-finals! Thanks to Lizzie, as always.**

 **Prompt: Madam Hooch's job interview.  
(word count) 2,222**  
 **(quote) "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point being a damn fool about it.' - W.C. Fields**  
 **(restriction) No question marks**

 **Word count: 2,222**

* * *

Rolanda could feel her own pulse jolting at her throat with the sort of hyper-awareness that can only come from extended silence. She was somewhat relieved to see that her hand hardly shook at all when she reached forwards to take the proffered teacup that hovered in the air before her, as elegantly as Belvina Black herself might have.

Phineas Nigellus Black stared at his desk irritably and gave no sign of beginning their interview anytime soon. His thumb and index finger gripped the teacup handle so tightly Rolanda would have feared it would break off, if she hadn't already heard tales of Professor Black's exceptionally weak hands when it came to anything but casting spells.

Outside, the blizzard threw heaving snow against the window panes, blurring all view of the Hogwarts grounds. Rolanda lowered the teacup and returned it to the Headmaster's desk; something about the cold weather mixed with the odd vulnerability she felt holding a piece of such intricate china was just too much for her to bear.

Professor Black finally looked up at her. His shrewd eyes were still the same astute, dark beads she had known during her years in Hogwarts, but his eyebrows had whitened considerably, and there was a certain drooping character to the skin on his face, which betrayed the age that weighed down on his shoulders.

His jaw, however, was just as stubbornly clenched as it had always been at the start of term feast—one of the few times he interacted with students, other than the yearly interviews he offered the Slytherins to give them career advice. Rolanda suspected it was more out of courtesy to Pureblood families than anything, seeing as he rarely had anything worth saying. She wondered if he still did them.

Phineas Nigellus drew in a deep, tired breath through his teeth, as if he hadn't been the one to convene their meeting in the first place. "We ought to have been sitting here eight years ago, Miss Hooch."

"I wasn't interested in a job opportunity at the time," Rolanda replied, feeling as if her spine had locked into place. He had always had a knack for making her feel insecure, when even Professor Aragon had been unable to do so. Her teeth were biting into the wall of her mouth, and she wondered if the stinging pain could make the shame she felt dissipate.

His eyes couldn't have seen through the hard mask she had fixed over her emotions, but they lingered on her expression nonetheless before flitting down to the pile of parchments on the nearest corner of his desk. "You certainly took the long way around."

She said nothing.

"I hardly thought you would spare my letter a second glance."

Ah, so he hadn't lost his particular brand of Black scornful sarcasm. She certainly hadn't missed that, not in him or in his arrogant offspring who had often tried to emulate his lofty tone while mocking him behind his back.

She only wished that she could suppress the part of her that recoiled at the remark—she had made so many idiotic, high-browed remarks the last time she had spoken to him… _of course_ he would not have forgotten them. "With all due respect, sir, we both know perfectly well that you would not have sent a letter at all unless you were sure it would come at precisely the _worst_ moment."

The words hung in the air between them, and suddenly Rolanda was not nervous at all. In fact, she was able to reach forwards and drain her tea, dropping the empty teacup onto its saucer with a _clink_ that pierced the silence. Outside, the wind seemed to howl in response.

"And yet, here you are." He leaned forwards, his thick, layered robes cushioning his elbows. His finger twitched and their teacups suddenly disappeared into thin air. He didn't spare them a glance. Rolanda could suddenly see a tremor in his hands that hadn't been there the last time she had seen him. "As I recall, you didn't like Hogwarts much."

"That's not true, Professor. I simply wanted to be out of it much more than I wanted to stay in."

"Indeed. Well, it has been eight years since you graduated, Miss Hooch." The headmaster looked down onto his desk and reached down, poking a finger through a pile of parchments, as if sorting through extensive files on her. Rolanda knew that it was most likely just a gesture meant to make her nervous. "Eight years, and quite the failed career, apparently."

She had been expecting this, of course, but it did little to soften the blow. She dug her nails into her knees and offered the headmaster a cold smile. "I was under the impression that this was to be a job interview."

"Six years wasted on Auror training at the Ministry; you never _were_ the sort to do well in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Phineas Nigellus snorted. "I cannot imagine what made you think you could. Your grades certainly never reflected any sort of talent beyond the sport you were so infatuated with…"

"It was thanks to said _infatuation_ that Slytherin won the Quidditch Cup for six years in a row—"

"No husband, I hear." Professor Black's eyebrow was raised in slight disdain. "And at your age…" His gaze slid slowly up from the ground to Rolanda's eyes, and the sharp edge of his teeth emerged in a cold smile.

He was trying very hard to irritate her, and if he was succeeding, Rolanda would not allow him to see it.

She set her jaw and allowed the smile to remain frozen on her face while her nails dug deep crescents into her knees. If it weren't for the very obvious signs of his aging on display in front of her, she might have confused the moment for her end-of-year advisory interview. He had used the same tone to mock her before—now he was simply delivering the last few blows her youthful confidence hadn't afforded him eight years ago. "You said you had a job for me. I thought that's what I was here for. Not for you to attempt making me regret the way my life turned out."

"I _told you_ , Miss Hooch, only two months before you left— _repeatedly_ —that the Ministry would systematically squash the life out of you. Had you listened to _me_ rather than whatever childish whim compelled you to become some sort of _hero_ _—_ "

" _Whim_ I'm sure you never had, seeing how you turned out," Rolanda retorted, her voice almost a snarl. "I do wonder what it says about an old man, when on the brink of his own death, he sees himself reflected in the dreams of a teenage girl. You always wanted to leave Hogwarts much more than I ever did."

Phineas Nigellus' expression remained impassive. There was a pause as the wind howled outside, and when he opened his mouth his voice was just as smooth and cold as ever. "Your attempts to cast my role as Headmaster of Hogwarts into disparaging light fall absolutely flat, given that you are here to be hired by me."

"Yes; even after you tried so hard to hold me back."

"I tried," he said. "Because I knew you would fail."

Rolanda shook her head, her lip curling. "No. You tried to discourage me because you were _scared_ —scared that I would succeed where you failed. I was just as _misguided_ as you were in your youth, with the seemingly idiotic ambition to have a role that _meant_ something in the world, one of the few Slytherins who weren't born with this itch to fill our pockets with as much money as we could possibly shove into them—"

His mask cracked slightly. She could tell he resented the comparison, and that only proved it to be all the more true. "You—"

Rolanda continued, trampling over his words with her own. "You spent your whole life convincing yourself that you had no choice but to become _this_ , an old man sitting behind a desk in a job that he hates inside a castle that he hates, because you were a Black and the Blacks need to have money. And so, when I came along, the thought that I might actually _succeed_ terrified you—because it would prove that this ideal you've built up in your head, the idea that people like us can't succeed, was a lie. You saw yourself in me. And you were _scared_."

The headmaster leaned back in his seat, and the frame of the wide chair made him seem almost small and weak in comparison. When Rolanda looked away from his eyes, which burned with the same cold cleverness that had lived in them his whole life, it almost seemed that she spoke to a crippled old man on the brink of his own death. Suddenly her words sounded less like an insult and more like a prophecy.

"But you _did_ fail." His voice was scathing. "You failed the Auror test twice."

"Not because I wasn't good. It was because the Ministry—"

"Is a cesspool of politics, yes." Phineas Nigellus interrupted her with a wave of his hand. His jaw clenched and unclenched as if he was growing weary of talking, but he made no other sign of it. "And you marched in like some commonplace buffoon, thinking that you could change it all around and get ahead of people like Crouch and Selwyn, when your last name hardly means anything anymore. Everything runs on money nowadays. Times of war are approaching, and no one could care less about the Hooch family and their frivolous ambitions."

Rolanda almost laughed. Everyone knew that the Black family was responsible for a steady influx of galleons arriving at Nurmengard, whatever the place was really becoming. Rolanda had heard rumors—some of which were of recruitment, especially among certain Purebloods at the Ministry of Magic.

Shaking her head with irritation, she moved her hands from her knees to the arms of her seat, poised as if to leave. Maybe the steadiness of her own hands would be evident enough to the fragile old man whose words tried much too hard to frighten her. "You promised me an _interview_ , Professor."

He let out a sound like a derisive laugh, but his expression didn't change. Instead, he turned to look out the window, where snowflakes had encrusted themselves into the edges of the windowsill, piling up against the glass. Rolanda couldn't for the life of her remember what that window faced. She wondered if it was possible to see the Quidditch field from there.

"There is an opening," he finally answered, the previous intensity gone from his voice and replaced by the same cold, bored tone that had characterized every interaction he had ever held with the student body at Hogwarts. "Flying instructor—along with Quidditch coaching and all that rubbish." Phineas Nigellus waved a hand. "Exactly the sort of tripe you scorned eight years ago when I suggested you settle for it."

Rolanda met his cynical stare with her resolute one. "I'll take it."

He had known, of course, that she would. He would not have offered her the position at all otherwise—one of the few things Phineas Nigellus hated more than working at a school was the humiliation that came with rejection. She had always known how the meeting would end, and so had he.

Brushing away the parchments on his desk, as if clearing it in preparation for further appointments (though Rolanda knew there couldn't possibly be anyone else he would have the tolerance to speak to on the same day), he nodded shortly. "Very well, I will expect you at the Great Hall the night after Christmas holidays. It is rather late in the year to establish any sort of teaching position when it comes to flying or Quidditch, but it would do you well to be trained before the next term, until you take over entirely." He made a low noise in his throat, as if he was tired of the conversation. He threw a look at the window again. "I'll have Basil send any further information by owl once this confounded blizzard is over."

Rolanda nodded shortly, standing up and smoothing her hands against her robes. So it was over. There was a strange sense of relief in her chest, though it hovered between many different, contradicting feelings. Taking hold of her things, she made her way to the door.

"This isn't failure, Professor."

He looked up to see her standing in the doorway. He remained expressionless and silent. Rolanda wondered if it was only her imagination, or if his hands had begun trembling with slightly more force than they had been before. "I'm not coming to work at Hogwarts because I've been _defeated_. I will be good at this job, and I will _excel_ at it. I haven't failed yet."

Phineas Nigellus' mouth twitched into a sardonic smile. He looked old—old, and infinitely tired. "You'll be in this school until you rot, you know."

"I'll work here until it kills me," she replied, eyes boring into his. "There's no shame in that."

And she left, leaving him to the howling of the blizzard.


End file.
